The issue of gambling corruption in sports has undermined major sporting events over the last number of years but Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee, is determined that the Beijing 2008 Olympics will not be the next high profile victims.
Rogge has announced that the body will attempt to forge a unified approach to sports betting across the Olympic disciplines by working with governments and international federations to prevent corruption associated with gambling.

He said that he and other members of the Olympic Council would attempt to introduce an early-warning system to alert sports to suspicious betting patterns before the Beijing Games next year. The IOC is likely to follow the model pioneered in British sport where numerous governing bodies have memorandums of understanding with betting companies, including the betting exchange Betfair, that allow the formal sharing of information in suspicious circumstances.

Betfair has such arrangements with soccer, cricket and rugby as well as agreements with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the International Tennis Federation. It has been rumoured that information from Betfair was pivotal in sparking the match-fixing inquiries currently underway in soccer and tennis.

Rogge stated that he also plans to convene a seminar on the issue of sports betting to discuss the threat posed by illegal gambling with all of the Olympic sports invited. He stated that this meeting would be a first step on the road to would be a unified system using the template for doping, which saw sports and governments combine to found the World Anti-Doping Agency.

'I am not speaking about a threat for any particular games but for sport in general this is something we have to address,” said Rogge.
In 2007 sports such as football, cricket, tennis and Athletics all fell under suspicion with a number of prosecutions being made world wide.